English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day by Skeat, Walter William, 1835-1912

8/14/2019 English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day by Skeat, Walter William, 1835-1912

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PREFACE

The following brief sketch is an attempt to present, in a popular form, the history of our English dialethe eighth century to the present day. The evidence, which is necessarily somewhat imperfect, goes tthat the older dialects appear to have been few in number, each being tolerably uniform over a wide athat the rather numerous dialects of the present day were gradually developed by the breaking up of t

groups into subdialects. This is especially true of the old Northumbrian dialect, in which the speech oAberdeen was hardly distinguishable from that of Yorkshire, down to the end of the fourteenth centuafter which date, the use of it for literary purposes survived in Scotland only. The chief literary dialecearliest period, was Northumbrian or Anglian, down to the middle of the ninth century. After that timeliterature was mostly in the Southern or Wessex dialect, commonly called Anglo-Saxon, the dominion of which lasted down to the early years of the thirteenth vi century, when the East Midland dialect suregradually rose to pre-eminence, and has now become the speech of the empire. Towards this result thgreat universities contributed not a little. I proceed to discuss the foreign elements found in our dialechief being Scandinavian and French. The influence of the former has long been acknowledged; a durecognition of the importance of the latter has yet to come. In conclusion, I give some selected specimthe use of the modern dialects.

I beg leave to thank my friend Mr P. Giles, M.A., Hon. LL.D. of Aberdeen, and University Reader inComparative Philology, for a few hints and for kindly advice.

W. W. S.

Cambridge3 March1911

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Cheshire). Eastern (N.Essex, Norfolk). Western (S.W. Shropshire). Southern (Wiltshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex).Bibliography 133Index 136Facsimile. The only English Proclamation of Henry III. Oct. 18, 1258.

For a transcription of the Facsimile seepp. 75-6.

at end

{Transcribers Note:In addition to the chapters and some subheadings, all pages have anchors in the form "pageiv" or "paThe Facsimile is not included in this e-text. In its place is appended a transcription which undoes theorthographic changes described by the author on p. 75.}

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CHAPTER I

DIALECTS AND THEIR VALUE

According to the New English Dictionary, the oldest sense, in English, of the worddialect was simply amanner of speaking or phraseology, in accordance with its derivation from the Greekdialectos, a discourse

or way of speaking; from the verbdialegesthai, to discourse or converse.The modern meaning is somewhat more precise. In relation to a language such as English, it is used ispecial sense to signify a local variety of speech differing from the standard or literary language. Whtalk of speakers of dialect, we imply that they employ a provincial method of speech to which the mhas been educated to use the language of books is unaccustomed. Such a man finds that the dialect-spfrequently uses words or modes of expression which he does not understand or which are at any rate to him; and he is sure to notice that such words as seem to be familiar to him are, for the most part, stpronounced. Such differences are especially noticeable in the use of 2 vowels and diphthongs, and inmode of intonation.

The speaker of the standard language is frequently tempted to consider himself as the dialect-speakessuperior, unless he has already acquired some elementary knowledge of the value of the science of laor has sufficient common sense to be desirous of learning to understand that which for the moment libeyond him. I remember once hearing the remark madeWhat is the good of dialects? Why not sweep theall away, and have done with them? But the very form of the question betrays ignorance of the factno more possible to do away with them than it is possible to suppress the waves of the sea. English, lother literary language, has always had its dialects and will long continue to possess them in secludedistricts, though they are at the present time losing much of that archaic character which gives them tvalue. The spread of education may profoundly modify them, but the spoken language of the people continue to devise new variations and to initiate developments of its own. Even the standard language iscontinually losing old words and admitting new ones, as was noted long ago by Horace; and our so-cstandard pronunciation is ever imperceptibly but surely changing, and never continues in one stay

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In the very valuableLectures on the Science of Languageby Professor F. Max Mller, the second Lecturewhich deserves careful study, is chiefly occupied by some account of the processes which he namesrespectively phonetic decay and dialectic regeneration; processes to which all languages have alwaysbeen and ever will be subject.

By phonetic decay is meant that insidious and gradual alteration in the sounds of spoken words whthough it cannot be prevented, at last so corrupts a word that it becomes almost or wholly unmeaningword astwentydoes not suggest its origin. Many might perhaps guess, from their observation of such n

as thirty, forty, etc., that the suffix-tymay have something to do withten, of the original of which it is in factan extremely reduced form; but it is less obvious thattwen-is a shortened form of twain. And perhaps nonebut scholars of Teutonic languages are aware thattwainwas once of the masculine gender only, whiletwowas so restricted that it could only be applied to things that were feminine or neuter. As a somewhathackneyed example of phonetic decay, we may take the case of the Latinmea domina, i.e. my mistress, whichbecame in Frenchma dame, and in Englishmadam; and the last of these has been further shortened tomam,and even tom, as in the phrase Yes, m. This shows how nine letters may be 4 reduced to one. Similour monosyllablealmsis all that is left of the Greekelemosyn. Ten letters have here been reduced to f

This irresistible tendency to indistinctness and loss is not, however, wholly bad; for it has at the samelargely contributed, especially in English, to such a simplification of grammatical inflexions as certa

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the practical convenience of giving us less to learn. But in addition to this decay in the forms of wordhave also to reckon with a depreciation or weakening of the ideas they express. Many words becomehackneyed as to be no longer impressive. As late as in 1820, Keats could say, in stanza 6 of his poem Isabella, that His heart beat awfully against his side; but at the present day the wordawfullyis suggestive of schoolboys slang. It is here that we may well have the benefit of the principle of dialectic regeneration. Weshall often do well to borrow from our dialects many terms that are still fresh and racy, and instinct w

significance. Tennyson was well aware of this, and not only wrote several poems wholly in the Lincodialect, but introduced dialect words elsewhere. Thus inThe Voyage of Maeldune, he has the striking line:Our voices were thinner and fainter than any flittermouse-shriek. In at least sixteen dialects aflittermousemeans a bat.

I have mentioned Tennyson in this connexion 5 because he was a careful student of English, not onldialectal but also in its older forms. But, as a matter of fact, nearly all our chief writers have recognisvalue of dialectal words. Tennyson was not the first to use the above word. Near the end of the SeconhisSad Shepherd , Ben Jonson speaks of:

Green-bellied snakes, blue fire-drakes in the sky,And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings.Similarly, there are plenty of provincialisms in Shakespeare. In an interesting book entitledShakespeare,his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood , by J.R. Wise, there is a chapter on The Provincialisms of Shakespeare, from which I beg leave to give a short extract by way of specimen.

There is the expressive compound blood-boltered inMacbeth(Act iv, Sc. 1), which thecritics have all thought meant simply blood-stained. Miss Baker, in herGlossary of Northamptonshire Words, first pointed out that bolter was peculiarly a Warwickshire word,signifying to clot, collect, or cake, as snow does in a horses hoof, thus giving the phrase a fargreater intensity of meaning. And Steevens, too, first noticed that in the expression inTheWinters Tale(Act iii, Sc. 3), Is it a boy or a child?where, by the way, every actor tries tomake a point, and the audience invariably laughs the word child is used, as is sometimesthe case in the midland districts, as synonymous 6 with girl; which is plainly its meaning inthis passage, although the speaker has used it just before in its more common sense of either aboy or a girl.

In fact, theEnglish Dialect Dictionarycites the phrase is it a lad or a child? as being still current inShropshire; and duly states that, in Warwickshire, dirt collected on the hairs of a horses leg and forming intohard masses is said tobolter . Trench further points out that many of our pure Anglo-Saxon words whilived on into the formation of our early English, subsequently dropped out of our usual vocabulary, anow to be found only in the dialects. A good example is the wordeme, an uncle (A.S.am), which is rathercommon in Middle English, but has seldom appeared in our literature since the tune of Drayton. Yet known in our Northern dialects, and Sir Walter Scott puts the expression Didna hisemedie in the mouth of

Davie Deans ( Heart of Midlothian, ch. xii). In fact, few things are more extraordinary in the history of oulanguage than the singularly capricious manner in which good and useful words emerge into or disapfrom use in standard talk, for no very obvious reason. Such a word asyonder is common enough still; butits corresponding adjectiveyon, as in the phrase yon man, is usually relegated to our dialects. Though itcommon in Shakespeare, it is comparatively rare in the Middle English period, from the twelfth to thfifteenth century. It only occurs once in Chaucer, where it is introduced as being a Northern word; anabsolutely disappears from record in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Bosworths Anglo-Saxon Dictionarygives no example of its use, and it was long supposed that it would be impossible to trace iearly records. Nevertheless, when Dr Sweet printed, for the first time, an edition of King Alfreds translationof Pope Gregorys Pastoral Care, an example appeared in which it was employed in the most natural maas if it were in everyday use. At p. 443 of that treatise is the sentence Aris and gong to geonre byrg, i.e.

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Arise and go to yon city. Here the A.S.geon(pronounced like the modernyon) is actually declined after theregular manner, being duly provided with the suffix-re, which was the special suffix reserved only for thegenitive or dative feminine. It is here a dative after the prepositionto.

There is, in fact, no limit to the good use to which a reverent study of our dialects may be put by a distudent. They abound with pearls which are worthy of a better fate than to be trampled under foot. I w

content myself with giving one last example that is really too curious to be passed over in silence.It so happens that in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of Beowulf , one of the most remarkable and precious 8 of our early poems, there is a splendid and graphic description of a lonely mere, such as would have delthe heart of Edgar Allan Poe, the author of Ulalume. In Professor Earles prose translation of this passage,given in hisDeeds of Beowulf , at p. 44, is a description of two mysterious monsters, of whom it is said ththey inhabit unvisited land, wolf-crags, windy bluffs, the dread fen-track, where the mountain waterprecipitous gloom vanisheth beneath flood under earth. Not far hence it is, reckoning by miles, that standeth, and over it hang rimy groves; a wood with clenched roots overshrouds the water. The wonoted here is the wordrimy, i.e. covered with rime or hoar-frost. The original Anglo-Saxon text has the hrinde, the meaning of which was long doubtful. Grein, the great German scholar, writing in 1864,acknowledged that he did not know what was intended, and it was not till 1880 that light was first thrupon the passage. In that year Dr Morris edited, for the first time, some Anglo-Saxon homilies (commknown as theBlickling Homilies, because the MS. is in the library of Blickling Hall, Norfolk); and he caattention to a passage (at p. 209) where the homilist was obviously referring to the lonely mere of thepoem, in which its overhanging groves were described as beinghrimige, which is nothing but the true oldspelling of rimy. He naturally concluded 9 that the wordhrinde(in the MS. of Beowulf) was miswritten, anthat the scribe had inadvertently put downhrindeinstead of hrimge, which is a legitimate contraction of hrimige. Many scholars accepted this solution; but a further light was yet to come, viz. in 1904. In thaDr Joseph Wright printed the fifth volume of theEnglish Dialect Dictionary, showing that in the dialects of Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, the word for hoarfrost is notrime, butrind , with aderived adjectiverindy, which has the same sense asrimy. At the same time, he called attention yet once moto the passage inBeowulf . It is established, accordingly, that the suspected mistake in the MS. is no mistall; that the formhrindeis correct, being a contraction of hrindgeorhrindige, plural of the adjectivehrindig,which is preserved in our dialects, in the formrindy, to this very day. In direct contradiction of a commonpopular error that regards our dialectal forms as being, for the most part, corrupt, it will be found byexperience that they are remarkably conservative and antique.

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CHAPTER II

DIALECTS IN EARLY TIMES

The history of our dialects in the earliest periods of which we have any record is necessarily somewhobscure, owing to the scarcity of the documents that have come down to us. The earliest of these hav

carefully collected and printed in one volume by Dr Sweet, entitledThe Oldest English Texts, edited for theEarly English Text Society in 1885. Here we already find the existence of no less than four dialects, whave been called by the names of Northumbrian, Mercian, Wessex (or Anglo-Saxon), and Kentish. Tcorrespond, respectively, though not quite exactly, to what we may roughly call Northern, Midland, Sand Kentish. Whether the limits of these dialects were always the same from the earliest times, we caprobably not, when the unsettled state of the country is considered, in the days when repeated invasioDanes and Norsemen necessitated constant efforts to repel them. It is therefore sufficient to define th11 covered by these dialects in quite a rough way. We may regard the Northumbrian or Northern as thor group of dialects spoken to the north of the river Humber, as the name implies; the Wessex or Southe dialect or group of dialects spoken to the south of the river Thames; the Kentish as being peculiarand the Mercian as in use in the Midland districts, chiefly to the south of the Humber and to the northThames. The modern limits are somewhat different, but the above division of the three chief dialects(excluding Kentish) into Northern, Midland, and Southern is sufficient for taking a broad general vielanguage in the days before the Norman Conquest.

The investigation of the differences of dialect in our early documents only dates from 1885, owing toprevious impossibility of obtaining access to these oldest texts. Before that date, it so happened that nthe manuscripts that had been printed or examined were in one and the same dialect, viz. the SoutherWessex). The language employed in these was (somewhat unhappily) named Anglo-Saxon; and the verynatural mistake was made of supposing that this Anglo-Saxon was the sole language (or dialect) whichserved for all the Angles and Saxons to be found in the land of the Angles or England. This is thereason why it is desirable to give the more general name of Old English to the 12 oldest forms of ourlanguage, because this term can be employed collectively, so as to include Northumbrian, Mercian,Anglo-Saxon and Kentish under one designation. The name Anglo-Saxon was certainly ratherinappropriate, as the speakers of it were mostly Saxons and not Angles at all; which leads up to the pthat they did not speak English; for that, in the extreme literal sense, was the language of the Angles onBut now that the true relationship of the old dialects is known, it is not uncommon for scholars to speWessex dialect as Saxon, and of the Northumbrian and Mercian dialects as Anglian; for the latter arefound to have some features in common that differ sharply from those found in Saxon.

Manuscripts in the Southern dialect are fairly abundant, and contain poems, homilies, land-charters, wills, translations of Latin treatises, glossaries, etc.; so that there is considerable variety. One of the mprecious documents is the history known as theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was continued even after theConquest till the year 1154, when the death and burial of King Stephen were duly recorded.

But specimens of the oldest forms of the Northern and Midland dialects are, on the other hand, very mfewer in number than students of our language desire, and are consequently deserving of 13 special They are duly enumerated in the chapters below, which discuss these dialects separately.

Having thus sketched out the broad divisions into which our dialects may be distributed, I shall proceenter upon a particular discussion of each group, beginning with the Northern or Northumbrian.

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CHAPTER III

THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; TILL A.D. 1000

In Professor Earles excellent manual on Anglo-Saxon Literature, chapter v is entirely occupied with theAnglian Period, and begins thus: While Canterbury was so important a seminary of learning, there w

the Anglian region of Northumbria, a development of religious and intellectual life which makes it nregard the whole brilliant period from the later seventh to the early ninth century as the Anglian PerioAnglia became for a century the light-spot of European history; and we here recognise the first great the revival of learning, and the first movement towards the establishment of public order in things temand spiritual.

Unfortunately for the student of English, though perhaps fortunately for the historian, the most impobelonging to this period was written in Latin. This was theHistoria Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, or theChurch History of the Anglian 15 People. The writer was Beda, better known as the Venerable Bede, whowas born near Wearmouth (Durham) in 672, and lived for the greater part of his life at Jarrow, wherein 735. He wrote several other works, also in Latin, most of which Professor Earle enumerates. It is sBeda himself that he was learned in our native songs, and it is probable that he wrote many things in native Northumbrian or Durham dialect; but they have all perished, with the exception of one precioufragment of five lines, printed by Dr Sweet (at p. 149) from the St Gall MS. No. 254, of the ninth cenusually called Bedas Death-song, and is here given:

Fore there neidfaerae naenig uuiurthitthonc-snotturra than him thar[f] sie,to ymbhycggannae, aer his hin-iong[a]e,huaet his gastae, godaes aeththa yflaes,aefter deoth-daege doemid uueorth[a]e.Literally translated, this runs as follows:

Before the need-journey no one becomesmore wise in thought than he ought to be,(in order) to contemplate, ere his going hence,what for his spirit, (either) of good or of evil,after (his) death-day, will be adjudged.It is from Bedas Church History, Book iv, chap. 24 (or 22), that we learn the story of Cdmon, the famNorthumbrian poet, who was a herdsman and lay brother in the abbey of Whitby, in the days 16of thHild, who died in 680, near the close of the seventh century. He received the gift of divine song in a vthe night; and after the recognition by the abbess and others of his heavenly call, became a member oreligious fraternity, and devoted the rest of his life to the composition of sacred poetry.

He sang (says Beda) the Creation of the world, the origin of the human race, and all thehistory of Genesis; the departure of Israel out of Egypt and their entrance into the land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ; the incarnation, passion, and resurrectionof our Lord, and His ascension into heaven; the coming of the Holy Spirit and the teaching ofthe Apostles. Likewise of the terror of the future judgement, the horror of punishment in hell,and the bliss of the heavenly kingdom he made many poems; and moreover, many othersconcerning divine benefits and judgements; in all which he sought to wean men from the loveof sin, and to stimulate them to the enjoyment and pursuit of good action.

It happens that we still possess some poems which answer more or less to this description; but they alater date and are only known from copies written in the Southern dialect of Wessex; and, as the orig

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Northumbrian text has unfortunately perished, we have no means of knowing to what extent they repCdmons work. It is possible that they preserve some of it in a more or less close form of translationwe cannot verify this possibility. It has been ascertained, on the other hand, that a certain portion (bumeans 17 all) of these poems is adapted, with but slight change, from an original poem written in thSaxon of the continent.

Nevertheless, it so happens that a short hymn of nine lines has been preserved nearly in the original fCdmon dictated it; and it corresponds closely with Bedas Latin version. It is found at the end of theCambridge MS. of Bedas Historia Ecclesiasticain the following form:

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,metuds maecti end his modgidanc,uerc uuldurfadur; sue he uundra gihuaes,eci Dryctin, or astelid.He aerist scop aelda barnumheben til hrofe, haleg scepen[d].Tha middungeard moncynns uard,eci Dryctin, fter tiadfirum fold[u], frea allmectig.I here subjoin a literal translation.

Now ought we to praise the warden of heavens realm,the Creators might and His minds thought,the works of the Father of glory; (even) as He, of every wonder,(being) eternal Ruler, established the beginning.He first (of all) shaped, for the sons of men,heaven as (their) roof, (He) the holy Creator.The middle world (He), mankinds warden,eternal Ruler, afterwards prepared,the world for men (being the) Almighty Lord.The locality of these lines is easily settled, as we 18 may assign them to Whitby. Similarly, BedasDeath-song may be assigned to the county of Durham.

A third poem, extending to fourteen lines, may be called the Northumbrian Riddle. It is called by Dr Swethe Leiden Riddle, because the MS. that contains it is now at Leyden, in Holland. The locality is ubut we may assign it to Yorkshire or Durham without going far wrong. There is another copy in a Sodialect. These three brief poems, viz. Bedas Death-song, Cdmons Hymn, and the Riddle, are all printed,accessibly, in Sweets Anglo-Saxon Reader .

There is another relic of Old Northumbrian, apparently belonging to the middle of the eighth century

too remarkable to be passed over. I refer to the famous Ruthwell cross, situate not far to the west of Anear the southern coast of Dumfriesshire, and near the English border. On each of its four faces it beainscriptions; on two opposite faces in Latin, and on the other two in runic characters. Each of the lattcontains a few lines of Northern poetry, selected from a poem (doubtless by the poet Cynewulf) whicpreserved in full in a much later Southern (or Wessex) copy in a MS. at Vercelli in Piedmont (Italy). side which Professor Stephens callsthe front of the cross, the runic inscriptions give us two quotations, boimperfect at the end; and the same is true of the 19 opposite side orback . The MS. helps us to restore lettersthat are missing or broken, and in this way we can be tolerably sure of the correct readings.

The two quotations in front are as follows: it will be seen that the cross itself is supposed to be the sp

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1. [on]gered hin god almechttigtha he walde on galgu gistiga,modig fore all men; buga [ic ni darst.]

2. [ahof] ic riicn kyningc,heafuns hlafard; hlda ic ni darst.bismradu ungket men ba t-gadre.

ic ws mith blod bistemid bigoten of [his sidan.]The two quotations at the back are these:

3. Crist ws on rodi;hwethr ther fus fearran cwomuththil til anum; ic tht al biheald.sare ic ws mith sorgum gidr fid;hnag [ic hwethr tham secgum til handa.]

4. mith strelum giwundadalegdun hi hin limw rign;gistoddum him t his lics heafdum,bihealdun hi ther heafun[s hlafard.]

The literal meaning of the lines is as follows:

1. God almighty stripped Himself when He would mount upon the gallows (the cross),courageous before all men; I (the cross) durst not bow down

2. I (the cross) reared up the royal King,the Lord of heaven; I durst not bend down.men reviled us two (the cross and Christ) both together.I was moistened with the blood poured forth from His side.

203. Christ was upon the cross;

howbeit, thither came eagerly from afarprinces to (see) that One; I beheld all that.sorely was I afflicted with sorrows;I submitted however to the mens hands.

4. wounded with arrows,they laid Him down, weary in His limbs.they stood beside Him, at the head of His corpse.they beheld there the Lord of heaven.

In the late MS. it is the cross that is wounded by arrows; whereas in the runic inscription it seems to b

implied that it was Christ Himself that was so wounded. The allusion is in any case very obscure; bunotion makes the better sense, and is capable of being explained by the Norse legend of Balder, who frequently shot at by the other gods in sport, as he was supposed to be invulnerable; but he was slain day by a shaft made of mistletoe, which alone had power to harm him.

There is also extant a considerable number of very brief inscriptions, such as that on a column at BewCumberland; but they contribute little to our knowledge except the forms of proper names. TheLiber Vitof Durham, written in the ninth century, contains between three and four thousand such names, but noth

Coming down to the tenth century, we meet with three valuable documents, all of which are connectwith Durham, generally known as the Durham Ritual and the Northumbrian Gospels.

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The Durham Ritual was edited for the Surtees Society in 1840 by the Rev. J. Stevenson. The MS. is iCathedral library at Durham, and contains three distinct Latin service-books, with Northumbrian glovarious later hands, besides a number of unglossed Latin additions. A small portion of the MS. has bmisplaced by the binder; the Latin prose on pp. 138-145 should follow that on p. 162. Mr Stevensons editionexhibits a rather large number of misreadings, most of which (I fear not quite all) are noted in my Collationof the Durham Ritual printed in thePhilological Societys Transactions, 1877-9, Appendix ii. I give, by way

of specimen, a curious passage (at p. 192), which tells us all about the eight pounds of material that wmake up the body of Adam.

aehto pundo of thm aworden is Adam pund lames of thonOcto pondera de quibus factus est Adam. Pondus limi, inde

aworden is flsc pund fyres of thon read is blod and hatfactus est caro; pondus ignis, inde rubeus est sanguis et calidus;

pund saltes of thon sindon salto tehero pund deawes of thon

pondus salis, inde sunt salsae lacrimae; pondus roris, undeaworden is swat pund blostmes of thon is fagung egenafactus est sudor; pondus floris, inde est uarietas oculorum;

pund wolcnes of thon is unstydfullnissevelunstatholfstnisse thohtapondus nubis, inde est instabilitas mentium;

pund windes of thon is oroth cald pund gefe of thon ispondus uenti, inde est anhela frigida: pondus gratiae, id est

thoht monnessensus hominis.22

We thus learn that Adams flesh was made of a pound of loam; his red and hot blood, of fire; his salt teasalt; his sweat, of dew; the colour of his eyes, of flowers; the instability of his thoughts, of cloud; hisbreath, of wind; and his intelligence, of grace.

The Northumbrian glosses on the four Gospels are contained in two MSS., both of remarkable interevalue. The former of these, sometimes known as the Lindisfarne MS., and sometimes as the Durhamnow MS. Cotton, Nero D. 4 in the British Museum, and is one of the chief treasures in our national cIt contains a beautifully executed Latin text of the four Gospels, written in the isle of Lindisfarne, by(bishop of Lindisfarne in 698-721), probably before 700. The interlinear Northumbrian gloss is two acenturies later, and was made by Aldred, a priest, about 950, at a time when the MS. was kept atChester-le-Street, near Durham, whither it had been removed for greater safety. Somewhat later it waremoved to Durham, where it remained for several centuries.

The second MS. is called the Rushworth MS., as it was presented to the Bodleian Library (Oxford) bRushworth, who was deputy-clerk to the House of Commons during the Long Parliament. The Latinwritten, probably in the eighth century, by a scribe named Macregol. The gloss, written in the latter htenth century, is in two hands, 23 those of Farman and Owun, whose names are given. Farman was a

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Harewood, on the river Wharfe, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He glossed the whole of St MatthewsGospel, and a very small portion of St Mark. It is worthy of especial notice, that his gloss, throughouMatthew, is not in the Northumbrian dialect, but in a form of Mercian. But it is clear that when he hacompleted this first Gospel, he borrowed the Lindisfarne MS. as a guide to help him, and kept it befowhen he began to gloss St Mark. He at once began to copy the glosses in the older MS., with slight ovariations in the grammar; but he soon tired of his task, and turned it over to Owun, who continued it

end. The result is that the Northumbrian glosses in this MS., throughout the three last Gospels, are ofvalue, as they tell us little more than can be better learnt from the Durham book; on the other hand, FsMercian gloss to St Matthew is of high value, but need not be considered at present. Hence it is best case to rely, for our knowledge of Old Northumbrian, on the Durham bookalone.

It must be remembered that a gloss is not quite the same thing as a free translation that observes the rgrammar. A gloss translates the Latin text word by word, in the order of that text; so that the glossatoneither observe the natural English order nor in all cases preserve the English grammar; 24 a fact whsomewhat lessens its value, and must always be allowed for. It is therefore necessary, in all cases, to the Latin text. I subjoin a specimen, from Matt, v 11-15.

eadge aron ge mith thy yfle hia gecuoethas iuh and mith thy11. Beati estis cum maledixerunt uobis et cum

oehtas iuih and cuoethas eghwelc yfel with iuihpersecuti uos fuerint et dixerint omne malum aduersum uos

gesuicasvelwges fore mec gefeath and wynnsumiath forthonmentientes propter me. 12. gaudete et exultate quoniam

mearda iuere monigfalde isvelsint in heofnum suvelsuelce ec forthon

merces uestra copiosa est in caelis sic enim

ge-oehton tha witgo tha the weron r iuih geepersecuti sunt prophetas qui fuerunt ante uos. 13. Uos

sint salt eorthes tht gif salt forworthes in thon geslted bith toestis sal terrae quod si sal euanuerit in quo sallietur ad

nowihtevelnnihte mge ofer tht buta tht gesended bithvelgeworpen tnihilum ualet ultra nisi ut mittatur foras

and getreden bith from monnum gie aronvelsint leht middangeardeset conculcetur ab hominibus 14. Uos estis lux mundi

ne mg burugvelceastra gehydavelgedeigla ofer mor gesetednon potest ciuitas abscondi supra monte posita.

ne ec bernas thccillevelleht-ft and settas thavelhia unther mitte15. neque accendunt lucernam et ponunt eam sub

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velunder sestre ah ofer leht-isern and lihteth allum tha the inmodio sed super candelabrum et luceat omnibus qui in

hus bithonvelsintdomo sunt.The history of the Northern dialect during the next three centuries, from the year 1000 to nearly 1300few insignificant exceptions, is a total blank.

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CHAPTER IV

THE DIALECTS OF NORTHUMBRIA; A.D. 1300-1400

A little before 1300, we come to aMetrical English Psalter , published by the Surtees Society in 1843-7. Thlanguage is supposed to represent the speech of Yorkshire. It is translated (rather closely) from the L

Vulgate version. I give a specimen from Psalm xviii, 14-20.14. He sent his arwes, and skatered tha;

Felefalded levening, and dreved tham swa.15. And schewed welles of watres ware,

And groundes of ertheli world unhiled are,For thi snibbing, Laverd myne;For onesprute of gast of wreth thine.

16. He sent fra hegh, and uptoke me;Fra many watres me nam he.

17. He out-toke me thare amangFra my faas that war sa strang,And fra tha me that hated ai;For samen strenghthed over me war thai.

18. Thai forcome me in daie of twinging,And made es Layered mi forhiling.

19. And he led me in brede to be;Sauf made he me, for he wald me;

2620. And foryhelde to me Laverd sal

After mi rightwisenes al.

And after clensing of mi hendeSal he yhelde to me at ende.The literal sense is: He sent His arrows and scattered them; multiplied (His) lightning and so afflictethem. And the wells of waters were shown, and the foundations of the earthly world are uncovered bThy snubbing (rebuke), O my Lord! because of the blast (Lat.inspiratio) of the breath of Thy wrath. He sentfrom on high, and took me up; from many waters He took me. He took me out there-among from mywere so strong, and from those that alway hated me; for they were strengthened together over me. Thbefore me in the day of affliction, and the Lord is made my protection. And He led me (so as) to be inplace; He made me safe, because He desired (lit. would) me; and the Lord shall requite me accordingrighteousness, and according to the cleanness of my hands shall He repay me in the end.

In this specimen we can already discern some of the chief characteristics which are so conspicuous inLowland Scotch MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The most striking is the almost total the final-e which is so frequently required to form an extra syllable when we try to scan the poetry of 27Chaucer. Even where a final-e is written in the above extract, it is wholly silent. The wordsware(were),are (are),myne, thine, toke, made, brede, hende, ende, are all monosyllabic; and in fact the large number ofmonosyllabic words is very striking. The wordsonesprute, forcome, foryheldeare, in like manner, dissyllabic.The only suffixes that count in the scansion are-en, -ed , and-es; as insam-en, skatr-d , drev-d , hat-d ,etc., andarw-s, well-s, watr-s, etc. The curious formsal, for shall, is a Northern characteristic. Soalso is the formhendeas the plural of hand; the Southern plural was oftenhond-en, and the Midland formwashond-sor hand-s. Note also the characteristic longa; as inswaforswo, so;gast , ghost;fra, fro;faas,foes. It was pronounced like thea in father .

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Off kyngis that aucht6 that reawt7,And mast8 had rycht thare kyng to be.But inwy9, that is sa fellowne10,Amang thame mad dissensiown:For sum wald have the Ballyolle kyng,For he wes cumyn off that ofspryng

That off the eldest systere was;And other sum nyt11 all that cas,And sayd, that he tharekyng suld be,That wes in als nere12degre,And cummyn wes off the nerrast maleIn thai13brawnchys collateralle...1. govern 2.more, by my faith3.nobility 4.endeavoured 5.choose 6. possessed 7.royalty 8.most 9.envy10.wicked 11.others denied 12.as near 13.those

A! blynd folk, fulle off all foly,Had yhe wmbethowcht14yowe inkkyrly15Quhat peryle to yowe mycht appere,Yhe had noucht wroucht onthis manr.Had yhe tane kepe16, how that that kyngOff Walys, forowtyn sudiowrnyng17,Trawaylyd18 to wyn the senyhowry19,And throw his mycht till occupyLandys, that ware till hym marchand20,31As Walys was, and als Irland,That he put till sic threllage21,That thai, that ware off hey parage22,Suld ryn on fwte, as rybalddale23,Quhen ony folk he wald assale.Durst nane of Walis in batale ryd,Na yhit, fra evyn fell24, abydeCastell or wallyd towne within,Than25he suld lyff and lymmys tyne26.Into swylk thryllage27 thame held heThat he owre-come with his powst28.14.bethought 15.especially 16.taken heed 17.without delay18.laboured 19.sovereignty 20.bordering 21.such subjection 22.highrank 23.rabble 24.after evening fell 25.but 26.lose27.thraldom 28. power

In this extract, as in that from theMetrical Psalter above, there is a striking preponderance of monosyllabland, as in that case also, the final-e is invariably silent in such words asoure, stere, lede, yhere, thare, were,etc., just as in modern English. The grammar is, for the most part, extremely simple, as at the presentchief difficulty lies in the vocabulary, which contains some words that are either obsolete or provinciof the obsolete words are found in other dialects; thusstere, to control,perfay, fonden(forfanden), chesen, tochoose,feloun, adj. meaning angry,take kepe, soiourne, to tarry,travaile, to labour,parage, rank, all occurin Chaucer;barnage, reaut, inWilliam of Palerne(in the Midland dialect, possibly Shropshire);oughte,owned, possessed,tyne, to lose, inPiers the Plowman; 32umbethinken, in theOrmulum; enkerly(forinkkyrly), in the alliterativeMorte Arthure; march, to border upon, inMandeville; seignorie, inRobert of Gloucester . Barbour is rather fond of introducing French words;rybalddaleoccurs in no other author.Threllageor thryllagemay have been coined fromthrell(Englishthrall), by adding a French suffix. As to the

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Scotch, to hear them all pronounce the dialect Old Scotch. Great has been the surprise of the latter especially on being told that Richard the Hermit [i.e. of Hampole] wrote in theextreme south of Yorkshire, within a few miles of a locality so thoroughly English asSherwood Forest, with its memories of Robin Hood. Such is the difficulty which people havein separating the natural and ethnological relations in which national names originate from thaccidental values which they acquire through political complications and the fortunes of

crowns and dynasties, that oftener than once the protest has been madeThen hemust have been a Scotchman settled there!

The retort is obvious enough, that Barbour and Henry the Minstrel and Dunbar and Lyndesay have alrecorded that their native language was Inglis or Inglisch; and it is interesting to note that, having regardto the pronunciation, they seem to have known, better than we do, how that name ought to be spelt.

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CHAPTER V

NORTHUMBRIAN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

The subject of the last chapter was one of great importance. When it is once understood that, down toa little later, the men of the Scottish Lowlands and the men of the northern part of England spoke not

same language, but the same dialect of that language, it becomes easy to explain what happened afteThere was, nevertheless, one profound difference between the circumstances of the language spokennorth of the Tweed and that spoken to the south of it. In Scotland, the Northumbrian dialect was spokbut the Celts, without much variety; the minor differences need not be here considered. And this dialcalled Inglis (as we have seen) by the Lowlanders themselves, had no rival, as the difference betweenthe Erse or Gaelic was obvious and immutable.

To the South of the Tweed, the case was different. England already possessed three dialects at least, vNorthumbrian, Mercian, and Saxon, i.e. Northern, 37 Midland, and Southern; besides which, Midlanthe least two main varieties, viz. Eastern and Western. Between all these there was a long contention supremacy. In very early days, the Northern took the lead, but its literature was practically destroyedDanes, and it never afterwards attained to anything higher than a second place. From the time of Alfrstandard language of literature was the Southern, and it kept the lead till long after the Conquest, wel1200 and even later, as will be explained hereafter. But the Midland dialect, which is not without witits value in the ninth century, began in the thirteenth to assume an important position, which in the fobecame dominant and supreme, exalted as it was by the genius of Chaucer. Its use was really foundedpractical convenience. It was intermediate between the other two, and could be more or less comprehboth by the Northerner and the Southerner, though these could hardly understand each other. The resnaturally, that whilst the Northumbrian to the north of the Tweed was practically supreme, the Northuto the south of it soon lost its position as a literary medium. It thus becomes clear that we must, durinfifteenth century, treat the Northumbrian of England and that of Scotland separately. Let us first inveposition in England.

38

But before this can be appreciated, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that the literature of thfifteenth century, in nearly all the text-books that treat of the subject, has been most unjustly underratcritics, nearly all with one accord, repeat the remark that it is a barren period, with nothing admirable aboit, at any rate in England; that it shows us the works of Hoccleve and Lydgate near the beginning,The Flower and the Leaf near the middle (about 1460), and the ballad of The Nut-brown Maid at the end of it, and nothingelse that is remarkable. In other words, they neglect its most important characteristic, that it was the cperiod of the lengthy popular romances and of the popular plays out of which the great dramas of thesucceeding century took their rise. To which it deserves to be added that it contains many short poem

fugitive character, whilst a vast number of very popular ballads were in constant vogue, sometimes hdown without much change by a faithful tradition, but more frequently varied by the fancy of the mocompetent among the numerous wandering minstrels. To omit from the fifteenth century nearly all acits romances and plays and ballads is like omitting the part of Hamlet the Dane from Shakespeares greatesttragedy.

The passion for long romances or romantic poems had already arisen in the fourteenth century, and, tsome extent, in the thirteenth. Even just before 1300, we meet with the lays of Havelok andHorn. In thefourteenth century, it is sufficient to mention the romances of Sir Guy of Warwick (the earlier version),Sir Bevis of Hamtoun, andLibeaus Desconus, all mentioned by Chaucer;Sir Launfal, The Seven Sages(earlierversion, as edited by Weber);Lai le Freine, Richard Coer de Lion, Amis and Amiloun, The King of Tars,

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William of Palerne, Joseph of Arimathea(a fragment),Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight , Alisaunder of MacedoineandAlexander and Dindimus(two fragments of one very long poem),Sir Ferumbras, andSir Isumbras. The spirited romance generally known as the alliterativeMorte Arthuremust also belong here,though the MS. itself is of later date.

The series was actively continued during the fifteenth century, when we find, besides others, the rom

Iwain and Gawain, Sir Percival, andSir Cleges; The Sowdon(Sultan)of Babylon; The Aunturs(Adventures)of Arthur , Sir Amadas, The Avowing of Arthur , andThe Life of Ipomidoun; The Wars of Alexander , The SevenSages(later version, edited by Wright);Torrent of Portugal, Sir Gowther , Sir Degrevant , Sir Eglamour , Le Bone Florence of Rome, andPartonope of Blois; the prose version of Merlin, the later version of Sir Guy of Warwick , and the verse Romance, of immense 40 length, of The Holy Grail; Emare, The Erl of Tolous, andThe Squire of Low Degree. Towards the end of the century, when the printing-press was already at workfind Caxton greatly busying himself to continue the list. Not only did he give us the whole of Sir ThoMalorys Morte D Arthur , enprynted and fynysshed in thabbey Westmestre the last day of Iuyl, the yeour lord MCCCCLXXXV; but he actually translated several romances into very good English prose onown account, viz.Godefroy of Boloyne(1481),Charles the Grete(1485),The Knight Paris and the fair Vyene(1485),Blanchardyn and Eglantine(about 1489), andThe Four Sons of Aymon(about 1490). We must furtherput to the credit of the fifteenth century the remarkable English version of theGesta Romanorum, and manymore versions by Caxton, such asThe Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, The Life of Jason, Eneydos(whichis Virgils neid in the form of a prose romance),The Golden Legend or Lives of Saints, andReynard theFox. When all these works are considered, the fifteenth century emerges with considerable credit.

It remains to look at some of the above-named romances a little more closely, in order to see if any oare in the dialect of Northern England. Some of them are written by scribes belonging to other parts, seems to be little doubt that 41 the following were in that dialect originally, viz. (1)Iwain and Gawain,printed in Ritsons Ancient Metrical Romances, and belonging to the very beginning of the century, extantthe same MS. as that which contains Minots Poems: (2)The Wars of Alexander (Early English Text Society,1886), edited by myself; see the Preface, pp. xv, xix, for proofs that it was originally written in a pureNorthumbrian dialect, which the better of the two MSS. very fairly preserves. Others exhibit strong tNorthern dialect, such asThe Aunturs of Arthur , Sir Amadas, andThe Avowing of Arthur , but they may be in aWest Midland dialect, not far removed from the North. In the preface toThe Sege of Melayne(Milan)and Roland and Otuel, edited for the Early English Text Society by S. J. Herrtage, it is suggested that both poems were by the author of Sir Percival, and that all three were originally in the dialect of the North of England.

Iwain and GawainandThe Wars of Alexander belong to quite the beginning of the fifteenth century, and tappear to be among the latest examples of the literary use of dialect in the North of England considervehicle for romances; but we must not forget the miracle plays, and in particularThe Towneley Mysteriesorplays acted at or near Wakefield in Yorkshire, andThe York Plays, lately edited by Miss Toulmin Smith.Examples of Southern 42 English likewise come to an end about the same time; it is most remarkab

very soon, after the death of Chaucer, the Midland dialect not only assumed a leading position, but enthat proud position almost alone. The rapid loss of numerous inflexions, soon after 1400, made that dwhich was already in possession of such important centres as London, Oxford, and Cambridge, muchlearn, and brought its grammar much nearer to that in use in the North. It even compromised, as it wethat dialect by accepting from it the general use of such important words asthey, their , them, the plural verbare, and the prepositiontill. There can be little doubt that one of the causes of the cessation of varying foof words in literary use was the civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses, which must for a brief pehave been hostile to all literary activity; and very shortly afterwards the printing-presses of London acombined to recognise, in general, one dialect only.

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Hence it came about, by a natural but somewhat rapid process, that the only dialect which remainedunaffected by the triumph of the Midland variety was that portion of the Northern dialect which still own in Scotland, where it was spoken by subjects of another king. As far as literature was concernedtwo dialects were available, the Northumbrian of Scotland and the East Midland in 43 England. It isthat the readiest way of distinguishing between the two is to call the one Scottish and the other English,ignoring accuracy for the sake of practical convenience. This is precisely what happened in course of

and the new nomenclature would have done no harm if the study of Middle English had been at all gBut such was not the case, and the history of our literature was so much neglected that even those whhave been well informed knew no better than others. The chief modern example is the well-known cmost important and valuable book entitledAn Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, by JohnJamieson, D.D., first published in Edinburgh in 1808. There is no great harm in the title, if for Language weread Dialect; but this great and monumental work was unluckily preceded by a Dissertation on the Originof the Scottish Language, in which wholly mistaken and wrongheaded views are supported with gringenuity and much show of learning. In the admirable new edition of Jamieson by Longmuir andDonaldson, published at Paisley in 1879, this matter is set right. They quite rightly reprint this Dissertation,which affords valuable testimony as to the study of English in 1808, but accompany it with most judiremarks, which are well worthy of full repetition.

That once famous Dissertation can now be considered only a 44 notable feat of literarycard-building; more remarkable for the skill and ingenuity of its construction than for itsarchitectural correctness, strength and durability, or practical usefulness. That the language ofthe Scottish Lowlands is in all important particulars the same as that of the northern countiesof England, will be evident to any unbiassed reader who takes the trouble to compare theScottish Dictionary with the Glossaries of Brockett, Atkinson, and Peacock. And thesimilarity is attested in another way by the simple but important fact, that regarding some of our Northern Metrical Romances it is still disputed whether they were composed to the northor the south of the Tweed.... And to this conclusion all competent scholars have given theirconsent.

For those who really understand the situation there is no harm in accepting the distinction between Scottishand English, as explained above. Hence it is that the name of Middle Scots has been suggested for theliterary language of Scotland written between the latter half of the fifteenth century and the early decthe seventeenth. Most of this literature is highly interesting, at any rate much more so than the Englishliterature of the same period, as has been repeatedly remarked. Indeed, this is so well known that speexamples are needless; I content myself with referring to theSpecimens of Middle Scots, by G. GregorySmith, Edinburgh 45 and London, 1902. These specimens include extracts from such famous authorHenryson, Dunbar, Gawain (or Gavin) Douglas, Sir David Lyndesay, John Knox, and George BuchaPerhaps it is well to add that Scottis or Scots is the Northern form of Scottish or Scotch; just asInglis is the Northern form of English.

Middle Scots implies both Old Scots and Modern Scots. Old Scots is, of course, the same thing asNorthumbrian or Northern English of the Middle English Period, which may be roughly dated as ext1300 to 1400 or 1450. Modern Scots is the dialect (when they employ dialect) illustrated by Allan RAlexander Ross, Robert Tannahill, John Galt, James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd), Robert Burns, Sir Scott, and very many others.

I conclude this chapter with a characteristic example of Middle Scots. The following well-known passage ifrom the conclusion to Dunbars Golden Targe.

And as I did awake of my sweving1,The ioyfull birdis merily did syng

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For myrth of Phebus tendir bems schene2;Swete war the vapouris, soft the morowing3,Halesum the vale, depaynt wyth flouris ying4;The air attemperit, sobir, and amene5;In quhite and rede was all the feld besene646

Throu Naturis nobil fresch anamalyng7,In mirthfull May, of eviry moneth Quene.

O reverend Chaucere, rose of rethoris8 all,As in oure tong ane flour9 imperiall,That raise10 in Britane evir, quho redis rycht,Thou beris of makaris11 the trymph riall;Thy fresch anamalit terms celicall12This mater coud illumynit have full brycht;Was thou noucht of oure Inglisch all the lycht,Surmounting eviry tong terrestriallAls fer as Mayis morow dois mydnycht?

O morall Gower, and Ludgate laureate,Your sugurit lippis and tongis aureate13Bene to oure eris cause of grete delyte;Your angel mouthis most mellifluate14Oure rude langage has clere illumynate,And faire our-gilt15oure speche, thatimperfteStude, or16your goldyn pennis schupe17 to wryte;This ile before was bare, and desolateOf rethorike, or lusty18 fresch endyte19.1. dream 2.bright 3.morn 4. young 5. pleasant 6.arrayed 7. enamelling 8.orators 9. flower 10.didst rise 11. poets12.heavenly 13.golden 14.honeyed 15.overgilt 16.ere17.undertook 18. pleasant 19.composition47

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CHAPTER VI

THE SOUTHERN DIALECT

We have seen that the earliest dialect to assume literary supremacy was the Northern, and that at a vedate, namely, in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries; but its early documents have nearly all peris

with the exception of one short fragment, any of Cdmons poems have survived, they only exist in Southeversions of a much later date.

The chief fosterer of our rather extensive Wessex (or Southern) literature, commonly called Anglo-Sthe great Alfred, born at Wantage in Berkshire, to the south of the Thames. We may roughly define thof the Old Southern dialect by saying that it formerly included all the counties to the south of the Thato the west and south-west of Berkshire, including Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and Devonexcluding Cornwall, in which the Cornish dialect of Celtic prevailed. It was at Athelney in Somersetnear the junction of the rivers Tone and Parrett, 48 that Alfred, in the memorable year 878, when hisdominions were reduced to a precarious sway over two or three counties, established his famous strofrom which he issued to inflict upon the foes of the future British empire a crushing and decisive defit was near Athelney, in the year 1693, that the ornament of gold and enamel was found, with its famlegendLFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCANlfred commanded (men) to make me.

From his date to the Norman Conquest, the MSS. in the Anglo-Saxon or Southern dialect are fairly nand it is mainly to them that we owe our knowledge of the grammar, the metre, and the pronunciationolder forms of English. Sweets Anglo-Saxon Primer will enable any one to begin the study of this dialect,and to learn something valuable about it in the course of a month or two.

The famousAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, beginning with a note concerning the year 1, when Augustus wasemperor of Rome, not only continues our history down to the Conquest, but for nearly a century beythe year 1154. The language of the latter part, as extant in the (Midland) Laud MS., belongs to the twcentury, and shows considerable changes in the spelling and grammar as compared with the Parker Mwhich (not counting in a few later entries) ends with the year 1001.

After the Conquest, the Southern dialect continued 49 to be the literary language, and we have severexamples of it. Extracts from some of the chief works are given in Part i of Morriss Specimens of EarlyEnglish. They are selected from the following: (1)Old English Homilies, 1150-1200, as printed for the EarlyEnglish Text Society, and edited by Dr Morris, 1867-8. (2)Old English Homilies, Second Series, before 1200,ed. Morris (E.E.T.S.), 1873. (3)The Brut , being a versified chronicle of the legendary history of Britain,compiled by Layamon, a Worcestershire priest, and extending to 32,240 (short) lines; in two versionof the earlier being about 1205. (4)A Life of St Juliana, in two versions, about 1210; ed. Cockayne and Bro(E.E.T.S.), 1872. (5)The Ancren Riwle, or Rule of anchorite nuns (Camden Society), ed. Morton, 1853; tdate of composition is about 1210. (6)The Proverbs of Alfred , about 1250; printed in Dr Morriss Old English

Miscellany(E.E.T.S.), 1872. A later edition, by myself, was printed at Oxford in 1907. (7) A poem byNicholas de Guildford, entitledThe Owl and the Nightingale, about 1250; ed. Rev. J. Stevenson, 1838; ed. TWright, 1843; ed. F.H. Stratmann, of Krefeld, 1868. (8) A curious poem of nearly 400 long lines, usuknown asA Moral Ode, which seems to have been originally written at Christchurch, Hampshire, andfrequently printed; one version is in Morriss Old English Homilies, and another in the 50 Second Series of the same. (9)The Romance of King Horn; before 1300, here printed in full.

Just at the very end of the century we meet with two Southern poems of vast length.The Metrical Chronicleof Robert of Gloucester, comprising the History of Britain from the Siege of Troy to the year 1272, ththe accession of Edward I, and written in the dialect of Gloucester, was completed in 1298. It must sestrange to many to find that our history is thus connected with the Siege of Troy; but it must be reme

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that our old histories, including Layamons poem of The Brut mentioned above, usually included the fabulohistory of very early Britain as narrated by Geoffrey of Monmouth; and it is useful to remember that to this circumstance such important works as Shakespeares King Lear andCymbeline, as well as the old playof Locrine, once attributed to Shakespeare. According to Roberts version of Geoffreys story, Britain wasoriginally called Brutain, after Brut or Brutus, the son of neas. Locrin was the eldest son of Brutus and hiswife Innogen, and defeated Humber, king of Hungary, in a great battle; after which Humber was drow

the river which still bears his name. Locrins daughter Averne (or Sabre in Geoffrey) was drowned likewiin the river which was consequently called Severn. The British king Bathulf (or, in Geoffrey, Bladudbuilder of Bath; and the 51 son of Bladud was Leir, who had three daughters, named Gornorille, BegCordeille. Kymbel (in Geoffrey, Kymbelinus), who had been brought up by Augustus Csar, was kiBritain at the time of the birth of Christ; his sons were Guider and Arvirag (Guiderius and ArviragusAnother king of Britain was King Cole, who gave name (says Geoffrey falsely) to Colchester. We cotouch with authentic history with the reign of Vortigern, when Hengist and Horsa sailed over to Britaextract from Robert of Gloucester is given inSpecimens of Early English, Part ii.

The other great work of the same date is the vast collection edited for the Early English Text SocietyHorstmann in 1887, entitled,The Early South-English Legendary, or Lives of Saints. It is extant in severalMSS., of which the oldest (MS. Laud 108) originally contained 67 Lives; with an Appendix, in a latecontaining two more. The eleventh Life is that of St Dunstan, which is printed inSpecimens of Early English,Part ii, from another MS.

Soon after the year 1300 the use of the Southern dialect becomes much less frequent, with the exceptsuch pieces as belong particularly to the county of Kent and will be considered by themselves. Thereimmense manuscript collections of various poems, originally in various dialects, which are worth 52One of these is the Harleian MS. No. 2253, in the British Museum, the scribe of which has reduced einto the South-Western dialect, though it is plain that, in many cases, it is not the dialect in which thewere originally composed; this famous manuscript belongs to the beginning of the fourteenth centurypoems were printed from it, with the title of Altenglische Dichtungen, by Dr K. Bddeker, in 1878. Anothersimilar collection is contained in the Vernon MS. at Oxford, and belongs to the very end of the same the poems in it are all in a Southern dialect, which is that of the scribe. It contains, e.g., a copy of theversion of Piers the Plowman, which would have been far more valuable if the scribe had retained the spof his copy. This may help us to realise one of the great difficulties which beset the study of dialects,that we usually find copies of old poems reduced to the scribes owndialect; and it may easily happen thatsuch a copy varies considerably from the correct form.

It has already been shown that the rapid rise and spread of the Midland dialect during the fourteenth practically put an end to the literary use of Northern not long after 1400, except in Scotland. It affectSouthern in the same way, but at a somewhat earlier date; so that (even in Kent) it is very difficult to Southern work after 1350. There 53 is, however, one remarkable exception in the case of a work whbe dated in 1387, written by John Trevisa. Trevisa (as the prefix Tre- suggests) was a native of Cornw

he resided chiefly in Gloucestershire, where he was vicar of Berkeley, and chaplain to Thomas Lord The work to which I here refer is known as his translation of Higden. Ralph Higden, a Benedictine mthe Abbey of St Werburg at Chester, wrote in Latin a long history of the world in general, and of Britparticular, with the title of thePolychronicon, which achieved considerable popularity. The first book of thhistory contains 60 chapters, the first of which begins with P, the second with R, and so on. If all thesare copied out in their actual order, we obtain a complete sentence, as follows:Presentem cronicamcompilavit Frater Ranulphus Cestrensis monachus; i.e. Brother Ralph, monk of Chester, compiled the prechronicle. I mention this curious device on the part of Higden because another similar acrostic occurelsewhere. It so happens that Higdens Polychroniconwas continued, after his death, by John Malverne, wbrought down the history to a later date, and included in it an account of a certain Thomas Usk, with seems to have been acquainted. Now, in a lengthy prose work of about 1387, calledThe Testament of Love, I

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one day 54 discovered that its author had adopted a similar deviceno doubt imitatingHigdenand had so arranged that the initial letters of his chapters should form a sentence, asfollows:Margarete of virtw, have merci on Thsknvi. There is no difficulty about the expresMargarete of virtw, because the treatise itself explains that it means Holy Church, but I could makof Thsknvi, as the letters evidently require rearrangement. But Mr Henry Bradley, one of the editors of New English Dictionary, discovered that the chapters near the end of the treatise are out of order; and w

had restored sense by putting them as they should be, the new reading of the last seven letters came othin vsk, i.e. thine Usk; and the attribution of this treatise to Thomas Usk clears up every difficulty fits in with all that John Malverne says. This, in fact, is the happy solution of the authorship of The Testament of Love, which was once attributed to Chaucer, though it is obviously not his at all.

But it is time to return to John Trevisa, Higdens translator. This long translation is all in the Southern dialoriginally that of Gloucestershire, though there are several MSS. that do not always agree. A fair copfrom a MS. in the library of St Johns College, Cambridge, is given side by side with the original Latin inedition already noticed. It 55 is worth adding that Caxton printed Trevisas version, altering the spelling tosuit that of his own time, and giving several variations of reading.

Trevisa was also the author of some other works, of which the most important is his translation into Efrom the original Latin, of Bartholomus de Proprietatibus Rerum.

I am not aware of any important work in the Southern dialect later than these translations by Trevisa.quite modern times, an excellent example of it has appeared, viz. in thePoems of Rural Life, in the Dorset Dialect , by William Barnes.

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CHAPTER VII

THE SOUTHERN DIALECT OF KENT

Though the Kentish dialect properly belongs to Southern English, from its position to the south of thThames, yet it shows certain peculiarities which make it desirable to consider it apart from the rest.

In Bedas Ecclesiastical History, Bk i, ch. 15, he says of the Teutonic invaders: Those who came over wereof the three most powerful nations of GermanySaxons, Angles, and Jutes. From the Jutes ardescended the people of Kent, and of the Isle of Wight, and those also in the province of the West-Sawho are to this day called Jutes, seated opposite to the Isle of Wight; a remark which obviously implies thesouthern part of Hampshire. This suggests that the speech of Kent, from the very first, had peculiaritiown. Dr Sweet, in hisSecond Anglo-Saxon Reader, Archaic and Dialectal, gives five very brief Kentishcharters of the seventh and eighth centuries, but the texts are in Latin, and only the names of personsplaces appear in Kentish forms. In the ninth century, however, there 57 are seven Kentish charters, odescription, from the year 805 to 837. In one of these, dated 835, a few lines occur that may be quote

Ic bidde and bebeode swlc monn se tht min lond hebbe tht he lce gere agefe themhigum t Folcanstane l. ambra maltes, and vi. ambra gruta, and iii. wega spices and ceses,and cccc. hlafa, and an hrithr, and vi. scep.... Thm higum et Cristes cirican of thm londeet Cealflocan: tht is thonne thritig ombra alath, and threo hund hlafa, theara bith fiftighwitehlafa, an weg spices and ceses, an ald hrithr, feower wedras, an suin oththe sex wedras,sex gosfuglas, ten hennfuglas, thritig teapera, gif hit wintres deg sie, sester fulne huniges,sester fulne butran, sester fulne saltes.

That is to say:

I ask and command, whosoever may have my land, that he every year give to the domestics aFolkestone fifty measures of malt, and six measures of meal, and three weys [heavy weights]of bacon and cheese, and four hundred loaves, and one rother [ox], and six sheep.... To thedomestics at Christs church, from the land at Challock: that is, then, thirty vessels of ale, andthree hundred loaves, of which fifty shall be white loaves, one wey of bacon and cheese, oneold rother, four wethers, one swine or six wethers, six goose-fowls, ten hen-fowls, thirtytapers, if it be a day in winter, a jar full of honey, a jar full of butter, and a jar full of salt.

At pp. 152-175 of the same volume, Dr Sweet gives 1204 Kentish glosses of a very early date. No. 2Cardines, hearran; and in several modern dialects, including Hampshire, the upright part of a gate to the hinges are fastened is called aharr .

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Several years ago, M. Paul Mayer found five short sermons in a Kentish dialect in MS. Laud 471, in Bodleian Library, along with their French originals. They are printed in Morriss Old English Miscellany, andtwo of them will be found inSpecimens of Early English, Part i, p. 141. The former of these is for theEpiphany, the text being taken from Matt. ii 1. The date is just before 1250. I give an extract.

The kinges hem wenten and hi seghen the sterre thet yede bifore hem, alwat hi kam over thohuse war ure loverd was; and alswo hi hedden i-fonden ure loverd, swo hin an-urede, and himoffrede hire offrendes, gold, and stor, and mirre. Tho nicht efter thet aperede an ongel of hevene in here slepe ine metinge, and hem seide and het, thet hi ne solde ayen wende beherodes, ac be an other weye wende into hire londes.

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A few remarks may well be made here on some of the peculiarities of Southern English that appear huse of v forf (as invader , vram, vlesshe), and of z fors (as inzone, zit , zennes) are common to this day,especially in Somersetshire. The spellinglhord reminds us that many Anglo-Saxon words began withhl, oneof them beinghl fweard , laterhl ford , 61 a lord; and thishl is a symbol denoting the so-called whisperedl, sounded much as if an aspirate were prefixed to thel, and still common in Welsh, where it is denoted byll,as inllyn, a lake. In every case, modern English substitutes for it the ordinaryl, thoughlh (=hl) was in use in

1340 in Southern. The prefixy-, representing the extremely common A.S. (Anglo-Saxon) prefixge-, was keptup in Southern much longer than in the other dialects, but has now disappeared; the formy-clept beingarchaic. The plural suffix-en, as inhaly-en, holy ones, saints, is due to the fact that Southern admitted theof that suffix very freely, as incherch-en, churches,sterr-en, stars, etc.; whilst Northern only admitted fivesuch plurals, viz.egh-en, ey-en, eyes (Shakespeares eyne), hos-en, stockings,ox-en, shoo-n, shoes, andf-n,foes;ox-enbeing the sole survivor, sinceshoon(as inHamlet , iv iv 26) is archaic. The modernchild-r-en,breth-r-en, are really double plurals; Northern employed the more original formschilder andbrether , both of which, and especially the former, are still in dialectal use.Evrelest-indeexhibits the Southern-indefor presentparticiples.

But the wordzennes, sins, exhibits a peculiarity that is almost solely Kentish, and seldom found elsewhviz. the use of e fori. The explanation of this rests on an elementary lesson in Old English phonology, wit will do the reader no harm to 62 acquire. The modern symboli (when denoting theshort sound, as inpit )really does double duty. It sometimes represents the A.S. shorti, as init (A.S.hit ), sit (A.S.sittan), bitten(A.S.bten), etc.; and sometimes the A.S. shorty, as inpyt , a pit. The sound of the A.S. shorti was muchthe same as in modern English; but that of the shortywas different, as it denoted the mutated form of shortu for which German has a special symbol, viz., the sound intended being that of the Germaninschtzen, to protect. In the latter case, Kentish usually has the vowele, as in the modern Kentishpet , a pit,and in the surnamePetman(at Margate), which meanspitman; and as the A.S. for sin wassynn(dat.synne),the Kentish form waszenne, since Middle English substantives often represent the A.S. dative case. TheKentish plural had the double form,zennesandzennen, both of which occur in theAyenbite, as might havebeen expected.

The poet Gower, who completed what may be called the first edition of his poem named theConfessio Amantis(or Confession of a Lover) in 1390, was a Kentish man, and well acquainted with the KentishHe took advantage of this to introduce, occasionally, Kentish forms into his verse; apparently for thesecuring a rime more easily. See this discussed at p. ci of vol. ii of Macaulays edition of Gower. I mayillustrate this 63 by noting that inConf. Amant.i 1908, we findpitt riming withwitt , whereas in the same, v4945,pet rimes withlet .

We know that, in 1386, the poet Chaucer was elected a knight of the shire for Kent, and in 1392-3 heresiding at Greenwich. He evidently knew something of the Kentish dialect; and he took advantage ocircumstance, precisely as Gower did, for varying his rimes. The earliest example of this is in hisBook of the Duchess, l. 438, where he uses the Kentishkeninstead of kin(A.S.cynn) in order to secure a rime forten. In

theCanterbury Tales, E 1057, he haskesse, to kiss (A.S.cyssan), to rime withstedfastnesse. In the same, A1318, he hasfulfille, to fulfil (cf. A.S.fyllan, to fill), to rime withwille; but in Troilus, iii 510, he changes it to fulfelle, to rime withtelle; with several other instances of a like kind.

It is further remarkable that some Kentish forms seem to have established themselves in standard Enwhen we usedent with the sense of dint (A.S.dynt ). When we speak of the left hand , the formleft is reallyKentish, and occurs in theAyenbite of Inwyt ; the Midland form is properlylift , which is common enough inMiddle English; see theNew English Dictionary, s.v.Left , adj.Hemlock is certainly a Kentish form; cf. A.S.hymlice, and see theNew English Dictionary. So also iskernel(A.S.cyrnel); 64knell(A.S.cnyllan, verb);merry(A.S.myrge, myrige); and perhapsstern, adj. (A.S.styrne).

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There are some excellent remarks upon the vocalism of the Kentish dialect in Middle English by W. in the German periodical entitledAnglia, vol xvii pp. 73-90.

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CHAPTER VIII

THE MERCIAN DIALECT

I. East Midland

The Mercian district lies between the Northern and Southern, occupying an irregular area which it isdifficult to define. On the east coast it reached from the mouth of the Humber to that of the Thames. western side it seems to have included a part of Lancashire, and extended from the mouth of the LunBristol Channel, exclusive of a great part of Wales.

There were two chief varieties of it which differed in many particulars, viz. the East Midland and theMidland. The East Midland included, roughly speaking, the counties of Lincoln, Rutland, NorthampBuckingham, and all the counties (between the Thames and Humber) to the east of these, viz. CambrHuntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. We must also certainly inclnot Oxfordshire, at any rate the city of Oxford. This is by far the most important 66 group of countiewas the East Midland that finally prevailed over the rest, and was at last accepted as a standard, thus

from the position of a dialect to be the language of the Empire. The Midland prevailed over the NorthSouthern dialects because it was intermediate between them, and so helped to interpret between NortSouth; and the East Midland prevailed over the Western because it contained within its area all three chief literary centres, namely, Oxford, Cambridge, and London. It follows from this that the Old Merdialect is of greater interest than either the Northumbrian or Anglo-Saxon.

Unfortunately, the amount of extant Old Mercian, before the Conquest, is not very large, and it is onlyears that the MSS. containing it have been rightly understood. Practically, the study of it dates only 1885, when Dr Sweet published hisOldest English Texts.

But there is more Mercian to be found than was at first suspected; and it is desirable to consider this

An important discovery was that the language of the oldest Glossaries seems to be Mercian. We haveno less than four Glossaries in MSS. of as early a date as the eighth century, named respectively, the Erfurt, Corpus, and Leyden Glossaries. The first is now at Epinal, in France (in the department 67 Vthe second, at Erfurt, near Weimar, in Germany; the third, in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; andfourth, at Leyden, in Holland. The Corpus MS. may be taken as typical of the rest. It contains an enuof a large number of difficult words, arranged, but imperfectly, in alphabetical order; and after each owritten its gloss or interpretation. Thus the fifth folio begins as follows:

Abminiculum . adiutorium.Abelena . haeselhnutu.Abiecit . proiecit.

Absida . sacrarium.Abies . etspe.Ab ineunte tate . infantia.

The chief interest of these Glossaries lies in the fact that a small proportion of the hard words is explin Latin, but in Mercian English, of which there are two examples in the six glosses here quoted. ThuAbelena, which is another spelling of Abellana or Avellana, a filbert, is explained as haeselhnutu; whichis a perfectly familiar word when reduced to its modern form of hazel-nut. And again, Abies, which usuameans a fir-tree, is here glossed by etspe. But this is certainly a false spelling, as we see by comparinwith the following glosses in Epinal and Erfurt (Nos. 37,1006):Abies. saeppaespae; andTremulus. aespaeesp. This shows that the scribe ought to have explained Abies by saeppae,meaning the tree full of sap, called in Frenchsapin; but he confused it with 68 another tree, the tremblingtree, of which the Old Mercian name was espe or esp, or aespae, and he miswroteespeas etspe,inserting a needlesst . This last tree is the one which Chaucer called theasp in l. 180 of hisParliament of

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Fowls, but in modern times the adjectival suffix-en(as ingold-en, wood-en) has been tacked on to it, and it isnow theaspen.

The interpretation of these ancient glosses requires very great care, but they afford a considerable nuinteresting results, and are therefore valuable, especially as they give us spellings of the eighth centuare very scarce.

One of the oldest specimens of Old Mercian that affords intelligible sentences is known as the LoricaPrayer, because it occurs in the same MS. (Ll. 1. 10 in the Cambridge University Library) as the LoricaGlosses, or the glosses which accompany a long Latin prayer, really a charm, called lorica orbreast-plate, because it was recited thrice a day to protect the person who used it from all possibleand accident. I give this Prayer as illustrating the state of our language about A.D. 850.

And the georne gebide gece and miltse fore alra his haligra gewyrhtum and ge-earningum andboenum be [hiwe]num, tha thedomino deogelicedon from fruman middan-geardes; thonnegehereth he thec thorh hiora thingunge. Do thonne fiorthan sithe thin hleor thriga to iorthan,fore alle Godes cirican, and sing thas fers:domini est salus, saluum fac populum tuum,domine, praetende misericordiam tuam. Sing thonnepater noster . 69 Gebide thonne fore allegeleaffulle mennin mundo. Thonne bistu thone deg dael-niomende thorh Dryhtnes gefe alratheara goda the nig monn for his noman gedoeth, and thec alle soth-fest fore thingiathincaelo et in terra. Amen.*

* I writehiwenumin l. 2 in place of an illegible word.That is:

And earnestly pray for-thyself for help and mercy by-reason-of the deeds and merits andprayers of all his saints on-behalf-of the [households] that have pleased the Lord God fromthe beginning of the world; then will He hear thee because-of their intercession. Bow-downthen, at the fourth time, thy face thrice to the earth before all Gods church, and sing theseverses: The Lord is my salvation, save Thy people, O Lord: show forth Thy mercy. Sing thena pater-noster. Pray then for all believing men in the world. Then shalt thou be, on that day, apartaker, by Gods grace, of all the good things that any man doth for His name, and alltrue-men will intercede for thee in heaven and in earth. Amen.

Another discovery was the assignment of a correct description to the glosses found in a document kntheVespasian Psalter ; so called because it is an early Latin Psalter, or book of Psalms, contained in a CMS. in the British Museum, marked with the class-mark Vespasian, A. 1. This Psalter is accompaniedthroughout with glosses which were at first mistakenly thought to be in a Northumbrian dialect, and published as such by the Surtees Society in 1843. They were next, in 1875, wrongly supposed to be Kbut since they were printed by Sweet in 1885 it has been shown that they are really 70 Mercian. Thi

glosses is very important for the study of Old Mercian, because they are rather extensive; they occuppages of theOldest English Texts, and are followed by 20 more pages of similar glosses to certain Latincanticles and hymns that occur in the same MS.

There are also a few Charters extant in the Mercian dialect, but the earliest contain little else than oldthe names of persons and places. There are, however, some later Charters, from 836 to 1058 in the Mdialect, which contain some boundaries of lands and afford other information. Most of these relate toWorcestershire.

But the most interesting Mercian glosses are those to be found in the Rushworth MS., which has alrementioned as containing Northumbrian glosses of the Latin Gospels of St Mark, St Luke, and St John

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Gospel of St Matthew was glossed by the scribe Farman, who was a priest of Harewood, situate on thWharfe, in the West Riding of Yorkshire; whose language, accordingly, was Mercian. In myPrinciples of English Etymology, First Series(second edition, 1892), p. 44, I gave a list of words selected from theseglosses, in order to show how much nearer they stand, as a rule, to modern English than do the correAnglo-Saxon forms. I here repeat this list, as it is very instructive. The references, such as 5. 15, are to 71the chapters and verses of St Matthews Gospel, as printed in my edition of The Holy Gospels, in

Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian, and Old Mercian Versions, synoptically arranged (Cambridge, 1871-87). Thefirst column below gives the Modern English form, the second the Old Mercian form (with referencethe third the Anglo-Saxon or Wessex form:

Modern Old Mercian Wessex (A.S.)all all, 5. 15 eallare arun, 19. 28 (not used )betwixt betwix, 27. 56 betweoxcheek c ke, 5. 39 c ace

5 cold cald, 10. 42 ceald

eke k, 5. 39 aceleven enlefan, 28. 16 endlufoneye ge, 5. 29 agefalleth falleth, 10. 29 fealleth

10 fell,pt.t.pl. fellun, 7. 25 f ollon-fold(in ten-fold) -fald, 19. 29 -fealdgall,sb. galla, 27. 34 geallahalf,sb. half, 20. 23 healf halt,adj. halt, 11. 5 healt

15 heard,pt.t.s.

(ge)h rde, 2. 3 (ge)herdelie(tell lies) lgan, 5. 11 l oganlight,sb. lht, 5. 16 l ohtlight,adj. liht, 11. 30 leohtnarrow naru, 7. 14 nearu

20 old ld, 9. 16 ealdsheep sc p, 25. 32 sc apshoes scas, 10. 10 sc os, scsilver sylfur, 10. 9 seolforslept,pt.t.pl. sleptun, 13. 25 sl pon

72 25 sold,pp. sald, 10. 19 sealdspit,vb. spittan, 27. 30 sptanwall wall, 21. 33 weallyard (rod ) ierd, 10. 10 gyrdyare (ready) iara, 22. 4 gearo

30 yoke ioc, 11. 29 geocyouth iuguth, 19. 20 geoguth

In l.5, the scribe Farman miswrotecaldasasgaldas, in Matt. x 42; but it is a mere mistake. In l. 20, the accover thea inld is marked in the MS., though the vowel was not originally long.

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Even a glance at this comparative table reveals a peculiarity of the Wessex dialect which properly beneither to Mercian nor to Modern English, viz. the use of the diphthongea (in which each vowel waspronounced separately) instead of simplea, before the sounds denoted byl, r , h, especially when anotherconsonant follows. We find accordingly such Wessex forms aseall, ceald , fealleth, -feald , gealla, healf , healt ,nearu, eald , seald , weall, gearo, where the Old Mercian has simplyall, cald , falleth, -fald , galla, half , halt ,naru, ald , sald , wall, iara. Similarly, Wessex has the diphthongsa, o, in which the former element is

long, where the Old Mercian has simplyor. We find accordingly the Wessexcace, ac, age,scap, as against the Merciancke, k , ge, scp; and the Wessexlogan, loht , as againstthe Mercianlgan, lht .

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I have now mentioned nearly all the examples of Old Mercian to be found before the Conquest. Afteevent it was still the Southern dialect that prevailed, and there is scarcely any Mercian (or Midland) tfound except in the Laud MS. of theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was written at Peterborough. See theextract, describing the miserable state of England during the reign of Stephen, inSpecimens of Early English,Part i.

It was about the year 1200 that the remarkable work appeared that is known by the name of The Ormulum,written in the North-East Midland of Lincolnshire, which is the first clear example of the form whichliterary language was destined to assume. It is an extremely long and dreary poem of about 10,000 lowritten in a sadly monotonous unrimed metre; and it contains an introduction, paraphrases relating togospels read in the church during the year, and homilies upon the same. It was namedOrmulumby the authorafter his own name, which was Orm; and the sole existing MS. is probably in the handwriting of Ormwho employed a phonetic spelling of his own invention which he strongly recommends. Owing to thcircumstance and to the fact that his very regular metre leaves no doubt as to his grammatical forms, otherwise uninviting poem has a high philological value. In my book entitledThe Chaucer Canon, publishedat 74 Oxford in 1900, I quote 78 long lines from theOrmulum, reduced to a simpler system of spelling, at p9-14; and, at pp. 15-18,I give an analysis of the suffixes employed by Orm to mark gramm

English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day by Skeat, Walter William, 1835-1912

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